


Taking out the Trash

by laundryboi



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laundryboi/pseuds/laundryboi
Summary: Elias Bouchard receives a promotion
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Taking out the Trash

The Magnus Institute, London, 1996 

Elias Bouchard held his breath as he swung the garbage bag into the bins outside the institute. Partly because even after three years working in this godforsaken place the smell of trash was still overwhelming, partly because he’d made some rather...unpleasant discoveries in the institute bins. Once, he’d found the whole thing filled with what looked like false eyes of different colours. It had been sunset, and the multihued enamel pupils had been almost beautiful with the suns light glimmering off them. He would have looked at it longer, had he not had the strangest feeling they were looking back at him. Another time- blazed out of his skull- he’d seen a hand- a perfect replica of a human arm- reaching out of the garbage towards him. He had reached out his own hand, answering it’s unspoken invitation to shake it, and it had turned into a worm as long as his arm, writhing around his exposed limb. He’d drawn back in time to avoid serious infection, but his left arm always felt slimy when he was high. So, constantly. He probably should have reported that second one, but quite frankly he didn’t care enough if the whole institute drowned in worms.  
Honestly, thinking of worms wasn’t a good idea. He wasn’t particularly frightened of them (unlike crickets, creepy little fuckers), but it reminded him of a comment made about the effect of years of steroid use on his...equitpment- during a failed liaison with that girl from the crystal shop.  
“It doesn’t look like that.” He muttered, swinging the trashbag into the bin.  
Being a filing clerk at the institute paid well enough for a job you could do while indulging in the devil’s lettuce, but not nearly enough to put up with the indignity he was forced to endure.  
Elias Bouchard doing administrative tasks. Elias Bouchard doing clerical work. Elias Bouchard doing menial labour. A few years ago, he’s have laughed at the idea. His father was...well, best not to think about his father. He’d be shocked if the old man had ever thought about him, since he’d thrown out his back in 1979, and transformed from Elias Bouchard, Oxford Blue, Rowing Captain, Future Olympian, to Elias Bouchard, punchline to a bad joke. Umberto Bouchard was not a man known for his patience, especially not towards his own children.  
He cursed, as the bag snagged on the side of the bin. He should have taken his time to unhook it, but instead he tried to tore it free, swearing all over again as the bag ripped open from end to end.  
“Stupid….fucking institutue! Fuck you!” Swearing actually made him feel better, so he continued. “Fuck this institute! Fuck that creepy old bad in the archive! Fuck you, mother, fuck you, father, fuck you rowing, fuck you Oxford, and fuck you Jonah fucking Mangus!”  
He paused, caught his breath, and then felt a deep despair well up inside him. This was going to be the rest of his life, wasn’t it? Failure, disappointment, the contempt of others, until he died. Elias Bouchard wasn’t a crier, but fuck it, there was nobody listening. He knelt in the scattered trash, gave vent to a quiet sob, then a louder one.  
“Fuck this institute.” He said again, before becoming aware of another presence, right behind him.  
“Bouchard, is it?”  
Elias clambered to his feet, ignoring the agonised twinges in his back.  
“Yes.” He said. Then added, lamely, “Sir.”  
James Wright, head of the Magnus Institute, was honestly the exact sort of man Elias would expect to find slinking around the bins at midnight, so he shouldn’t have been surprised. The length of pipe in his hands was a touch disconcerting, though.  
“Hold this for me will you?” Wright offered the pipe to Bouchard, who took it after a moments thought. “Thank you old boy.”  
“What do you want done with it, Sir? Artifact storage?” He hoped not.  
“Oh, nothing like that, Burt my boy, nothing like that. Just taking it for a walk.”  
Elias would have queried the second part of that statement had he not been tripped up by the use of his first name. He’d gone by his middle name since University, and he could have sworn he’d not introduced himself as Burt to anyone here. Was Wright friends with his father? Christ, yet another humiliation, piled on top of…  
“I don’t know your family.” Wright said, looking directly into Bouchard’s eyes. “No need to worry about that, Bouchard.”  
This was strange. Deeply strange. He lifted the length of metal.  
“The pipe, sir?”  
“In good time, Bouchard, in good time. Tell me, do you enjoy your job at the Institute?”  
“Yes sir.” One thing he had learned at Oxford was how to schmooze, and the skill didn’t desert him here. “It’s an honour to be part of…”  
“You don’t think it’s, and I quote, “tedium with a side of creepiness.?”  
Elias froze. He’d used that precise description while trying to make that Prentiss woman laugh last night. But they’d been in her (horrible, dirty, wine-smelling) apartment then. How could Wright have…?  
“No need to look so worried, Bouchard, it’s quite alright. Far from the most foolish thing said to impress a girl.”  
Elias began to relax. Perhaps the old man wasn’t so….  
“Of course, it’s a shame your last time with a woman wasn’t a success. Still, you’ll enjoy playing for my team much, much more.”  
He tensed again, anger bubbling up once more. He’d long suspected Wright was a queer (Elias had an eye for that), and honestly that was fine, one of his best friends was a poof (back when he’d had friends. And admittedly they hadn’t been that close), but he wasn’t going to take the insinuation that he, a man who had once given four women horizontal refreshment in a single night was….  
“Oh, no, do tell me about your exploits at Oxford. I’m sure you’ve got all manner of marvelous stories.”  
Was Elias more high than he thought? That had to be the reason, because the only other explanation was that….  
“Quite a career, no? £839 worth of property damage, two charges of drunken assault, and seven separate sexually transmitted diseases. Too much horizontal refreshment, eh?”  
Shit. Shit. The old man was reading his mind. How was this happening?  
“Your probably wondering why this is happening.”  
“You….probably know that I do.”  
“You’ll go far with intuition like that, boy.” Wright smiled, and suddenly his hands, which had been empty before, were holding something black and shiny. Bouchard flinched, but then saw it was a tape recorder. Where had that come from?  
“Statement of James Wright, concerning his...imminent retirement.”  
Elias should have run, he knew he should have. But the hunger to know, to understand overpowered his fear. And besides, he wasn’t sure if he could move his feet, as Wright began to talk. 

“You know what my first job at the institute was? Everyone seems to think I worked in the archives, but actually I was catering manager. Interesting job, really. You learn a lot about people from how they act in the canteen. It was actually seeing how you always eat alone that attracted my attentions your way, dear boy. But the most fascinating individual who graced my canteen was Richard Mendelson. My predecessor as head of the institute. You’ve walked past his portrait many times, though I know you’ve not paid it much mind. Understandable- he was much more handsome in the flesh. Well, no, not handsome as such, but...striking. The man had a *presence.* Something about the semitic cast to his features, but more than that- whenever one spoke to him you got the distinct impression that he knew you. That he understood everything about you. That was frightening for me, honestly. The Institute has always been quite the liberated place, but it was the 1960s, and I was married, back then. To a woman. A man who *really* understood everything about me, well, he could destroy my life. I knew I was playing with fire, but I couldn’t stop watching the man. He entertained many quite important guests right there in that canteen. Many with quite interesting food requirements tastes, that he’d ask me to cater for. A salad made purely of root vegetables for Simon Fairchild. Boiled eggs with smily faces on them for Nathaniel Lukas and his sullen but attractive son. Gazpacho and ice cream for one Jude Perry.” He chuckled. “In a minute, you’ll understand how terribly clever that all was, but at the time I was just as nonplussed as you are now. Just a bunch of rich eccentrics playing tricks on each other. Stil, his enthusiasm was infectious, and soon began to share it. I began to...know things, too. The things he needed me to know- what he wanted, what he needed, how he was feeling. Soon, I knew what to serve each guest without him even telling me to. And I knew other things as well. I knew- without needing evidence, without needing to even speak to her, that my wife was about to confront me about my affairs. I knew she was becoming dependent on sleeping pills, though she hid it from me. And I knew just how to talk her pharmacist into increasing her dose juuuust enough to look like an accident. The few weeks after her funeral were….just joyous. I knew I would not be caught. I knew I was not even a suspect. And then the nightmares began. Well, not nightmares- nightmares are born from inside a disorded mind, but these I could almost feel being hammered into my brain from outside. Images of my wifes final moments, of her last thoughts, so real and visceral that I too felt myself die every time I went to bed. And that feeling of being known? Even more frightening for a murderer than for a closeted homosexual. Where once i’d felt a connection to Richard, now I felt nothing. As if he knew what I had done, and shattered his psychic bond with me. Terror. Sheer terror. That he was going to report me...blackmail me….ruin me.” Wright sighed. “Soon it became too much, and I...confronted him. Asked him what was happening. And you know what he did, my dear Elias?” 

Bouchard shrugged. “What?” 

“This.” 

Something- someone-oozed out of Wright’s eyes, and into Elias’. Not physically, but in the most literal sense, that whichever way he looked, no matter how tight he screwed close his eyes, it was all he could see. A man, so old and withered that he looked more maggot than man. Eyes, huge and black, like deep empty pools. Skin, impossibly lined and leathery, oozing dark water like that of a corpse. Mouth, open in a silent scream like a cut of raw meat hanging in the middle of his dark face, sucking in air like a leech.  
Worse than looking on this creature, though, was being looked upon by it. It’s gaze was as cruelly indifferent as his father’s when he’d come begging for help after his injury. As viciously contemptous as his mother’s, when she’d locked him in the cupboard for talking back to her. And it knew everything about him. Every painful memory, every shamefulsecret, every secret fear, every forgotten humiliation. And it ran Elias over them like a whetstone, for minutes that lasted days, as he found himself shrinking, screaming, searching for the corners of his mind that the creature could not reach, could not find him in.  
“Leave me alone.” He whispered.”Please”  
“In due time.” The creature rasped back at him. “Just a couple of jobs you’ll have to do first. Prove your loyalty.”  
“Anything.” Elis said. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”  
“Oh. I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you.”  
And he did.  
And Elias Bouchard began to scream 

James Wright started like a man waking from a nightmare. He was...himself again. For the first time in decades, his body was his own, and so was his mind. The relief was so great that for a moment he forgot what his captor had made him do just before freeing him. Then he saw Elias. Saw the pipe in his hands. Saw Jonah Magnus peering out from behind the younger man’s eyes. And James Wright began to scream.


End file.
